Love that this month’s Cooking Club Challenge at Food Network Canada is a baking one! You can see all the mid-month round ups of Laura Calder’s Craggy Chocolate Cake here. There is still time to participate so go here for the recipe!
When I saw that it was a flourless chocolate cake, I just had to make it for my friends Eric and Kelly before they left Nova Scotia. They try to avoid gluten and so I knew this cake was perfect for them as a going away present.
The recipe is very simple, just four ingredients but you will need a scale. Melt 7 oz of chopped chocolate over a double boiler. Once melted, add 7 oz of softened butter one piece at a time.
Separate four eggs. Beat the egg yolks with half a cup of sugar until nice and light. Beat the egg whites to peaks.
Slowly (obviously I went too fast in this photo) and gradually add half a cup of sugar to make a stiff meringue.
It was a very humid, dark and stormy day. I never thought I would be successful making the meringue but I did warm up the eggs to room temperature. I also separated them into individual bowls to ensure no eggs yolks were in the whites. It must have worked! A bit of a foodie miracle really.
Slowly pour the melted chocolate and butter into the egg yolks.
Fold in 1/3 of the eggs whites into the batter.
Then fold in the rest.
Pour into a greased and floured springform pan and bake in a preheated 375F oven for 50 minutes.
The cake will souffle up as it bakes and then fall, giving it that craggy look. This cake was very similar to Nigella’s Chocolate Cloud Cake that I baked last year. I knew it would be delicious and apparently I was right:
“Your cake was scrumptuous! I loved the cracked top — made me think of brownies. Underneath the crackles revealed very rich, extremely moist, sweet, chocolate drenched-mouthfuls. It was great — thank you so much! I would highly recommend this for chocolate lovers–especially brownie lovers. I also think it would pair well with vanilla ice cream.”
~ Kelly
High praise indeed! I am so glad I made this for them, one last treat from my kitchen to their tummies.
Looks awesome Suzie! Still debating making this one, not everyone here is crazy about flourless cakes. I’ve made one similar to this and they really are very moist, souffle and brownie like. Can’t go wrong with all that chocolate and butter too!
You sent them off with chocolatey luuuv. A nice way to go.